Assassinations Egypt

Egyptian police shot and killed one convict and wounded and recaptured a second who escaped July 17 while serving life terms for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, the Interior Ministry said. Mohammed Khames, 40, was slain Monday after he opened fire on police when they surrounded his apartment in a Cairo suburb, the ministry said. In a separate incident, police recaptured Ahmed Aswani, 31, after a gun battle.

Radical Muslim Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of plotting to blow up the World Trade Center, U.N. headquarters and key transportation arteries into Manhattan, as well as planning to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and to commit other terrorist acts. The charges constitute the first criminal action against the blind cleric in connection with U.S.

The Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament and three bodyguards were shot to death Friday outside a Cairo hotel, only days after security officials said they had taken a list of potential assassination targets from suspected pro-Iraqi terrorists. Refaat Mahgoub, the second-most-powerful political figure in Egypt, was ambushed by four unidentified men with machine guns as he traveled in a motorcade to a meeting with a delegation of Syrians, authorities said.

A court acquitted 24 Muslim extremists Saturday of assassinating Egypt's Parliament Speaker and lambasted prosecutors for building their case on confessions drawn by torture. Ten of the defendants were convicted on lesser charges and sentenced to prison for up to 15 years. But the sentences were in stark contrast to those handed down by Egypt's special military-run security courts, which have condemned 21 militants to death in the last six months.

Three former army officers convicted in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat overpowered their guards, seized rifles and shot their way out of a maximum security prison near Cairo, police said. Interior Minister Zaki Badr placed airports and harbors on alert as part of an intense manhunt for the escapees, members of a Muslim fundamentalist organization known as Jihad, or Holy War.

A blind sheik who heads the radical Islamic organization believed responsible for the assassination last month of the Speaker of Egypt's Parliament was mistakenly granted a visa to travel to New York in an apparent attempt to raise money from American Muslim groups shortly before the killing, according to Egyptian security sources.

Iraq on Monday predicted the assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and said Baghdad-sponsored terrorists will soon strike against American and allied targets worldwide and turn President Bush into "a hostage in his Black House." "Honorable Arab and Muslim masses everywhere are preparing to join the great confrontation and announce the struggle to support Iraq," the official government Baath Party newspaper Al Thawra declared in a commentary that was also broadcast over Baghdad Radio.

Egyptian police shot and killed two Muslim extremists Saturday and arrested six others as suspects in the assassination of parliamentary Speaker Rifaat Mahgoub two weeks ago, authorities said. Three police officers were wounded in a gun battle before detaining members of an Muslim group said to be the outlawed Jihad (Holy War). Two fellow extremists were killed in another gun battle in Cairo later in the day. A third extremist and a police officer were wounded in that clash.

A prominent columnist was gunned down and died early Tuesday, and a Muslim extremist told interrogators he killed the writer because of his outspoken attacks on militant Islam, police said. Police said Farag Fouda's killer was a member of Islamic Jihad, the extremist group responsible for the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1982. Fouda, 49, was hit by a dozen bullets late Monday while getting into his car outside his office in Cairo's Nasr City.

A court acquitted 24 Muslim extremists Saturday of assassinating Egypt's Parliament Speaker and lambasted prosecutors for building their case on confessions drawn by torture. Ten of the defendants were convicted on lesser charges and sentenced to prison for up to 15 years. But the sentences were in stark contrast to those handed down by Egypt's special military-run security courts, which have condemned 21 militants to death in the last six months.

A prominent columnist was gunned down and died early Tuesday, and a Muslim extremist told interrogators he killed the writer because of his outspoken attacks on militant Islam, police said. Police said Farag Fouda's killer was a member of Islamic Jihad, the extremist group responsible for the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1982. Fouda, 49, was hit by a dozen bullets late Monday while getting into his car outside his office in Cairo's Nasr City.

Iraq on Monday predicted the assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and said Baghdad-sponsored terrorists will soon strike against American and allied targets worldwide and turn President Bush into "a hostage in his Black House." "Honorable Arab and Muslim masses everywhere are preparing to join the great confrontation and announce the struggle to support Iraq," the official government Baath Party newspaper Al Thawra declared in a commentary that was also broadcast over Baghdad Radio.

A blind sheik who heads the radical Islamic organization believed responsible for the assassination last month of the Speaker of Egypt's Parliament was mistakenly granted a visa to travel to New York in an apparent attempt to raise money from American Muslim groups shortly before the killing, according to Egyptian security sources.

Egyptian police shot and killed two Muslim extremists Saturday and arrested six others as suspects in the assassination of parliamentary Speaker Rifaat Mahgoub two weeks ago, authorities said. Three police officers were wounded in a gun battle before detaining members of an Muslim group said to be the outlawed Jihad (Holy War). Two fellow extremists were killed in another gun battle in Cairo later in the day. A third extremist and a police officer were wounded in that clash.

The Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament and three bodyguards were shot to death Friday outside a Cairo hotel, only days after security officials said they had taken a list of potential assassination targets from suspected pro-Iraqi terrorists. Refaat Mahgoub, the second-most-powerful political figure in Egypt, was ambushed by four unidentified men with machine guns as he traveled in a motorcade to a meeting with a delegation of Syrians, authorities said.

Egyptian police shot and killed one convict and wounded and recaptured a second who escaped July 17 while serving life terms for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, the Interior Ministry said. Mohammed Khames, 40, was slain Monday after he opened fire on police when they surrounded his apartment in a Cairo suburb, the ministry said. In a separate incident, police recaptured Ahmed Aswani, 31, after a gun battle.

Radical Muslim Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman was indicted Wednesday on federal charges of plotting to blow up the World Trade Center, U.N. headquarters and key transportation arteries into Manhattan, as well as planning to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and to commit other terrorist acts. The charges constitute the first criminal action against the blind cleric in connection with U.S.

The arrest Thursday of the first suspect in the World Trade Center bombing has focused investigators' attention on a storefront mosque in Jersey City, N.J., headed by a blind Egyptian cleric who calls himself a "soldier and servant in the cause of Allah" and whose followers have woven a network of Islamic rage across two continents. The suspect, Mohammed A.

Three former army officers convicted in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat overpowered their guards, seized rifles and shot their way out of a maximum security prison near Cairo, police said. Interior Minister Zaki Badr placed airports and harbors on alert as part of an intense manhunt for the escapees, members of a Muslim fundamentalist organization known as Jihad, or Holy War.